Puzzle No. 297 – 312 : Zeka 2013 Puzzle Set

I realize I’m crossing 300 with this without the usual special puzzle, but with Puzzle Marathon coming up, I’m sure everyone will have their fill of special puzzles. I’ll make it up later sometime between 300 and 400. Anyway, this was a 1 hour set at the Croatian competition. I basically started off with trying 1 classic puzzle and one variant of it, but then some pairings are just similar genres. For the variants, I’ll just put the additional rules. The Classic puzzles have links to their rules, and some are fully described here. The difficulties are obviously varied but barring the Pentomino I can’t immediately think of anything particularly difficult. All puzzles tested by Bram De Laat.

Enjoy!

P297 : Bosnian Road.

P297

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P298 : Bosnian Road Odd Even – The clues only give the information that the number in that clue cell is either Odd (O) or Even(E). All the clue substitutions are non-zero.

P298

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P299 : Masyu.

P299

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P300 : Corral Masyu – The cells not visited by the loop must be able to reach the edge of the grid by being orthogonally connected to other such cells.

P300

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P301 : Hashi (Probably the easiest puzzle of the set) – Draw single or double straight lines between the circled numbers. The number in a circle indicates how many lines must end there. The lines must run horizontally or vertically and must not cross or branch off. All circles must be connected to each other; i.e. it must be possible to travel from any circle to any other circle following the lines..

P301

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P302 : Gokigen naname (Known as Slalom in some places like Croco Puzzle) – Draw exactly one diagonal line in each cell of the diagram. A number in some intersections of the grid lines denote how many diagonal lines end in this intersection. The diagonal lines must not form a closed loop.

P302

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P303 : Norinori

P303

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P304 : Trio Cut – Paint some cells to make some triminos so that each trimino will be cut twice by thick lines. Each region bordered by thick lines should have 3 painted cells.

P304

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P305 : Easy As ABC (Range – A-C)

P305

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P306 : Easy as ABC Untouch – Additionally, same letters cannot touch each other even diagonally. Range is A-D.

P306

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P307 : Nurikabe

P307

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P308 : Cipher Nurikabe – The numbers are replaced by letters. All instances of the same letter have same values and different letters have different values. Note that the rule says values, so one letter can stand for a multi-digit number too.

P308

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P309 : Tapa

P309

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P310 : Disjoint Groups Tapa – Additionally, clues in the same box cannot have the same position around them shaded. E.g. 2 clues in the same box cannot both have the cell directly above them shaded.

P310

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P311 : Pentomino – Place the 12 Pentomino pieces into the grid. They can be rotated and reflected. They cannot be placed in black cells. Two pieces cannot touch each other even diagonally. The numbers outside give the number of cells occupied by pentomino pieces in that row or column. Pentominos given at the end of the post.

P311

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

P312 : Pentomino Areas – Instead of the numbers outside, the grid is divided into regions, each of which consists of exactly one entire pentomino.

P312

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puzzle No. 295,296 : A Nurikabe Loop and a Point To Next Sudoku

Daily League Update –

Killer pair by Fred yesterday.

Week 6 PDF.

The Point To Next below is my contribution for today. It might be tricky.

The Nurikabe Loop is just for the sake of it. Its not that tricky.

I’ll be sharing one of my puzzle sets tomorrow, so stay tuned 😛

Also, Puzzle Marathon 2013 is this weekend!

Rules –

For 295 : The numbers give the size of islands as in a Nurikabe puzzle. Instead of the stream being a wall of shaded cells, it is a continuous loop going through all cells except the ones with islands. The no 2×2 rule is waived.

For 296 : Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, if digit ‘n’ is placed in a cell with arrow, digit ‘n+1’ must be placed in one of the cells pointed by the arrow.

Enjoy!

P295

P296

Puzzle No. 294 : Product Heyawacky

Daily League update –

Little Killer Sudoku by Rishi on Thursday.

Odd Sudoku by Tom on Friday.

Scattered Sudoku by Bram on Saturday.

Multiplication Table Sudoku by Kwaka today.

I’ve been trying out some variations recently, which has resulted in many incomplete puzzles. I liked this one though, so finished it. There’s nothing too tricky about the puzzle, just the allowance for the variant related deductions.

Follow Regular Heyawacky Rules. Additionally, the number at the top left of a cage is the product of shaded cells in each different region within the cage.

Enjoy!

P294

Puzzle No. 293 : Transparent Tapa

Daily League Update –

Fortress Sudoku by Bastien.

Week 5 PDF.

For puzzle below,

Rules – All classic Tapa rules apply, except that even the clue cells can(not a necessity) be part of the Tapa wall. e.g. a “5″ clue can make a “X” shaped pentomino across the 9 cells it is in the middle of, but not a “P” shaped one.

Rated – Medium.

Enjoy!

P293

Puzzle No. 292 : Between 1 and 9 Sudoku

Daily League update –

Nonconsecutive Sudoku by Tom on Friday.

V-Day Sudoku by Bram on Saturday.

Counting On Line Sudoku by Kwaka on Sunday.

Equal Sudoku contributed by the group’s newest author, Christoph Seeliger on Monday.

Below is my Tuesday contribution.

Also, all my puzzle sets are nearing completion and I shall hopefully be able to resume regular posting from now.

Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, the clues outside the grid are the sum of the numbers that are between the digits 1 and 9 in that row or column.

Enjoy! Oh and I should add that this one’s quite tricky.

P292

Puzzle No. 291 : Fillomino

Firstly, LMI Beginners Contest February starts in about 3 and half hours from now, and will go on for a week as always. This time, the variants are provided by me. I still need work on my Classic-writing skills though, so the Classics is by Deb. So anyway, the variants are an Extra Region Sudoku, an XV Sudoku, an Irregular 7×7 and a Frame Sudoku.

Next, Daily League update –

Odd Toroidal Sudoku by Bastien on Wednesday.

Anti Knight Sudoku by Rishi on Thursday (Also a Valentine’s day special).

A bit late, but Week 4 PDF.

I realized pretty late that, “hey, I should make a Valentine’s day puzzle!”, and rushed through this Fillomino. I realize this is the first Classic Fillomino I’ve posted here, but its not the first I’ve created. This one’s easy for the most part with some slightly tricky finishes. I’ve drawn a heart  for 2 consecutive years now. Next year I’ll try Cupid.

Rules for Fillomino.

Enjoy!

P291

Puzzle No. 290 : Untouch Sudoku [Daily League]

Daily League update – 

Friday – Odd Even Big Small by Tom.

Saturday – Battenburg Sudoku by Bram (a nice odd-even related variant).

Sunday – All Odd All Even with GT Sudoku by Kwaka. (Long name, but a really nice puzzle to solve)

Monday –  Blackout Sudokuro by Fred.

I am posting an Untouch Sudoku that I couldn’t use elsewhere. My skills with Classics and Classic look-alikes in Sudoku still leave a lot to be desired I think, but one can only get better with practice. This one is on the easy side of medium, which is a good thing as my last few contributions to the daily league have been difficult.

The more regular readers of this blog will be accustomed to other puzzle types, which I haven’t been posting much recently. I can assure you though, that most of the puzzle sets that I am writing right now will be posted here in a few months or so.

The 2nd World Sudoku GP was held at LMI this past weekend. I didn’t do too well, making 2 mistakes (One caught before time but not repairable) that cost me and dropped me down to a 20th. Not too disappointing, but not my best either. The things I liked about this GP are that the puzzle quality was absolutely superb and also that there are 2 Indians in the top 10 and 3 in the top 20. Not bad at all.

Anyway,

Rules – Follow regular Sudoku rules. Additionally, Cells with the same digits cannot touch even diagonally.

Enjoy!

P290

Puzzle No. 285-289 : Random College Test + Polish Online Qualifier

Daily League Update –

A beautiful Classic Sudoku by Bastien on Wednesday.

A Trio Sudoku for the easy sprint enthusiasts by Rishi today (Thursday).

I’ve been working on many sets recently. One of these is the Polish Championship set. There is one offline qualifier round and one Online qualifier that have been released so far. The final Championships is yet to happen, in March I think. When I was approached for this, I started mainly for the final set, and discarded the easier ones for the offline qualifier. However, the decision to hold the online qualifier was a bit impromptu. They had a shortage of puzzles to hold this. Around the same time, one of my friends here in India approached me to make a set of some quick easy puzzles for a competition in his college. Also, they had apparently forgotten to use my big LITS in the offline round. So the big LITS and 3 out of these 5 were used in the Polish online qualifier as well, as the dates were just after the college offline competition. I won’t be posting the big LITS here as I worked on a theme for all the puzzles meant for the original set, whether they got on it or not, and I’d like to post them together after the final round is over. However, if you’re the impatient kind (like me), here and here are the two qualifiers with the remainder of my puzzles (and some others by other authors).

But anyway, if you can wait for the main themed set in full, here are the easy puzzles that were used in 2 separate events. I did rush a bit through these though.

P285 – Rules for Nurikabe.

P286 – Rules for Simple Loop – Draw a single closed loop passing through every cell in the grid, except the given black cells.

P287 – Rules for Star Battle.

P288 – Rules for Double Back.

P289 – Rules for Masyu.

Enjoy!

P285

P286

P287

P288

P289

 

 

Puzzle No. 284 : Rossini Sudoku [Daily League]

Daily League Update –

Sunday – Bridge Sudoku by Kwaka.

Monday – Thermo Sudoku by Fred.

Today’s Rossini is around the easier medium side. I wanted to post a few other things, but I’m too tired to. Maybe later on in the month. Coming up this weekend is the Indian round of the WPF Sudoku GP, hosted by LMI, authored by Deb Mohanty. You can find practice puzzles for this in the Sudokucup Daily League this week as well as on Rishi’s blog.

Rules for Sudoku. Additionally,

1. An arrow pointing towards the grid denotes that the first 3 digits from that edge are an increasing sequence.

2. An arrow pointing away from the grid denotes that the first 3 digits from that edge are a decreasing sequence.

3.If there is no arrow at the edge, the first 3 digits from that edge can neither be increasing nor decreasing (e.g. 2-4-3)

Enjoy!

P284

 

Puzzle No. 283 : Masyu [Corral]

Daily League Week 4 Updates –

Friday – Diagonal Sudoku by Tom.

Saturday – Little Killer Diagonal Sudoku, Stefan’s first contribution to the league.

Also, Week 3 PDF.

Ok, so today’s puzzle. I’m still working on multiple sets, so these are gonna be the scraps for now. Of course, later on in the year, when the respective tournaments are over, I’ll post most of these sets. But for now, the easy 10x10s or rejects are probably the best I can do. This one’s an easy 10×10.

Anyway,  for today’s, follow regular Masyu rules. Additionally, the cells the loop does not pass through need to be orthogonally connected till they reach an edge of the grid (So its like a Corral, kinda. Hence the name).

Enjoy!

P283